Category: SL User Group Meetings

2024 SL SUG meetings week #12 summary – WebRTC voice

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bella’s Lullaby, February 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 19th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from my chat log and the video embedded below, recorded by Pantera – my thanks as always for her work.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • The SLS Main channel was restarted on Tuesday, March 19th without any deployment.
  • Wednesday, March 20th, should see the next RC update deployed to the Bluesteel RC channel. This mostly comprises internal (non-user visible) updates, together with these user-visible additions:
    • llSetLinkSitFlags/llGetLinkSitFlags – allow you to adjust the sit flags for a prim. It supports the existing two SIT_FLAG_ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPT_ONLY.
      • At some future point, SIT_FLAG_HIDE_AVATAR should also be added, so you don’t need to play an animation that squishes the avatar so they aren’t visible in something like a very small vehicle.
    • A feature for estate managers that will allow them to schedule automatic region restarts (see below).
    • A new constant in llSPP PRIM_SIT_FLAGS it will contain all the sit flag information, (including ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPTED_ONLY (the two older constants will still be available).
    • A new capability to load item inventory lists via HTTP (so items with large contents will load faster when accessed, although this will require a viewer update as well).
    • A fix for avatars going into an animation thrash between falling and flying when using llSetHoverHeight() from an attachment.

SL Viewer Updates

No viewer updates at the start of the week, leaving the current official viewers as:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.3.7878383867, the Emoji Viewer, issued February 15, promoted March 1st, 2024 – NoChange.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • glTF PBR Materials Maintenance-2 RC viewer, version 7.1.4.8149792635, March 11, 2024.
    • Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.4.8148263040 , March 11, 2024.
    • Maintenance-W RC (bug and crash fixes), version 7.1.4.8113624779, March 6, 2024.
    • Maintenance Y RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history + Maint Z RC integration) updated to version 7.1.4.8114240508, March 6, 2024.
  • Project viewers:

WebRTC Voice

  • Officially announced on Tuesday, March 18th, is WebRTC (RTC=”real-time communication”), intended to replace Vivox as the Voice component in Second Life.
  • From my TPVD meeting notes from Friday, March 15th (video here) + notes from this meeting:
    • WebRTC is something of a “defacto standard”, being built-in to most web browsers and supporting  wide range of real-time communications tools in common use (e.g. Google Meet), supporting audio, video and data communications.
    • In terms of audio / voice (the primary focus here), WebRTC has a number of standard features expected of audio communications services (such as automatic echo cancellation, better noise cancellation and automatic gain control, etc.) and offers much improved audio sampling rates for improved audio quality.
    • Work has already progress so that WebRTC supports all of the current SL Voice capabilities (e.g. region Voice, parcel Voice, peer-to-peer, ad-hoc and group capabilities, muting, etc.).
      • The service is provided to the viewer as a library with a wrapper – no separate .EXE plug-in.
      • In addition, work has been put into securing the use of WebRTC Voice against attempts to eavesdrop, etc., and to route peer-to-peer communications via an internal server to avoid revealing user’s IP addresses to the risk of doxing, etc.
      • Voice Morphing is not part of the initial implementation.
      • Group voice will be capped at 50 people, but may be extended later.
      • Speech-to-text and text-to-speech  are being looked at by LL, but are not currently part of this project.
    • There are test viewers with the necessary viewer-side WebRTC support (not yet at Project or RC status), and regions on Aditi, the Beta grid (webRTC1 and webRTC2) with the back-end support.
    • Wiki documentation is in progress, and includes links to the test viewers (currently Windows and Mac OS) + a public code repo and other information. Note, this is subject to further update.
    • There is a dedicated WebRTC board on the SL Feedback Portal where issues, etc., can be reported / raised for discussion.
    • There is no backwards compatibility. Regions using the WebRTC back-end will only support voice on viewers using the WebRTC library. Ergo, once fully deployed, older viewer still using Vivox will not be able to access Voice services.
      • LL is working with TPVs to enable the switch to using WebRTC (once deployed to the Main grid) will not be made util there is an assurance that the majority of users will be on viewer supporting WebRTC.
    • The switch to WebRTC also opens the door to adding new features and capabilities to SL Voice, some of which have been long-requested.

In Brief

  • The PBR team is going to be changing llSetColor/llSetAlpha so that they behave on PBR in a similar way to legacy materials – just no time frame on when at present.
  • A discussion on scripting + notecard reading through the latter part of the meeting.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2024 week #11: SL TPVD summary: new approach to voice in SL

Posted on by Inara Pey
Burnt Toast Café and Tavern, February 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Third-Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, March 15th, 2024. My thanks as always to Pantera for recording the TPVD meeting and providing the video, which is embedded at the end of this article.

  • The TPV Developer meeting provides an opportunity for discussion about the development of, and features for, the Second Life viewer, and for Linden Lab viewer developers and third-party viewer (TPV) / open-source code contributors to discuss general viewer development. This meeting is held once a month  the third or fourth Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
  • In regards to meetings:
    • Dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.
    • Commence at 13:00 SLT on their respective dates.
    • Are conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
    • Are open to all with an interest in either content creation or viewer development.
  • The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of either meeting.

Official Viewers Status

[Video: 00:00-1:31]

No updates since the start of the week, leaving the available official viewer as:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.3.7878383867, the Emoji Viewer, issued February 15, promoted March 1st, 2024 – NoChange.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • glTF PBR Materials Maintenance-2 RC viewer, version 7.1.4.8149792635, March 11, 2024.
    • Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.4.8148263040 , March 11, 2024.
    • Maintenance-W RC (bug and crash fixes), version 7.1.4.8113624779, March 6, 2024.
    • Maintenance Y RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history + Maint Z RC integration) updated to version 7.1.4.8114240508, March 6, 2024.
  • Project viewers:

General Notes

  • The “most likely” RC viewer in line for promotion to release status is the glTF / PBR Maintenance 2 viewer, with the hope it will be promoted in week #12.
  • After this, the next glTF viewer will be the Featurette viewer (which may surface as an RC viewer by the end of March 2024), which will include:
    • Geenz Linden’s work on Mirrors, including his latest updates to the capability.
    • Cosmic Linden’s work on applying glTF materials to terrain.
    • Updates which will allow the glTF / PBR swatch boxes in the Build / Edit floater display previews of the materials being selected, rather than grey boxes.
    • The first series of additional glTF extensions – Index of Refraction.
    • Initial work on 2K textures support (which does not include BoM, as this would require a significant update to the Bake Service).

WebRTC Voice

[Video: 1:49-15:03]

  • A new project intended to move Second Life away from reliance on the Vivox voice service and plug-in, and to using the WebRTC communications protocol (RTC=”real-time communication”).
  • WebRTC is something of a “defacto standard”, being built-in to most web browsers and supporting  wide range of real-time communications tools in common use (e.g. Google Meet), supporting audio, video and data communications.
  • In terms of audio / voice (the primary focus here), WebRTC has a number of standard features expected of audio communications services (such as automatic echo cancellation, better noise cancellation and automatic gain control, etc.) and offers much improved audio sampling rates for improved audio quality.
  • Work has already progress so that WebRTC supports all of the current SL Voice capabilities (e.g. region Voice, parcel Voice, peer-to-peer, ad-hoc and group capabilities, muting, etc.).
  • In addition, work has been put into securing the use of WebRTC Voice against attempts to eavesdrop, etc., and to route peer-to-peer communications via an internal server to avoid revealing user’s IP addresses to the risk of doxing, etc.
  • WebRTC will be supplied within the viewer using a library and wrapper. This will mean no requirement to run a third-party voice plugin (SLvoice.exe, as supplied by Vivox) going forward.
  • The switch to WebRTC also opens the door to adding new features and capabilities to SL Voice, some of which have been long-requested.

Current Status

  • WebRTC currently works alongside Vivox, with the Lab working to make the transition over as painless as possible, with the simulator end of support being switched to WebRTC on a limited basis to start, with the switch being thrown for all regions once there is a high enough confidence that the majority of users are on viewers with the new WebRTC code + wrapper.
    • However, once regions have been switched to use the WebRTC capabilities, viewers still running the Vivox plugin will not be able to access Voice services on them, as the WebRTC back-end does not recognise the Vivox plug-in.
    • Voice Morphing is also not part of the initial implementation.
  • There are test viewers with the necessary viewer-side WebRTC support (not yet at Project or RC status), and regions on Aditi, the Beta grid (webRTC1 and webRTC2) with the back-end support.
    • It is possible that, going forward and to allow broader testing, a region on Agni (the Main grid) could be set-up for WebRTC testing (as with the current Echo Canyon for SL Voice).
  • Wiki documentation is in progress, and includes links to the test viewers (currently Windows and Mac OS) + a public code repo and other information. Note, this is subject to further update.
  • There is a dedicated WebRTC board on the SL Feedback Portal where issues, etc., can be reported / raised for discussion.
  • It was noted that there are various complexities and problems being worked out (e.g. safeguarding peer-to-peer Voice as noted above, issues with maintaining Voice during  / after region crossings, etc.).

Mesh Download Cost Discount

[Video: 39:30-42:38]

  • As recently reported, how the download weight (“cost”) of mesh objects is calculated will be changing.
  • The net effect of this is around a 15% reduction on the download weight.
  • This should result in a reduction of the overall Land Impact for many (but not necessarily all) in-world mesh objects.
    • However, it should not be taken to mean the overall LI for an object will be reduced by 15%; while the dominant factor in calculating an object’s Land Impact, it is not the only factor, as such the amount of LI reduction will always be dependent on the impact of the other costs associated with a mesh (rendring cost, physics cost, etc.).
    • As I’ve noted in a recent project summary, Animesh objects are excluded from any Land Impact reduction, for example, as they have their own LI calculation).

In Brief

  • Some discussion on adding PBR support to Bakes on Mesh. While this is not ruled out, it was again stated that it would require a significant overhaul of the Bake Service, and has some major lead-in questions on how to best go about the work that would need to be addressed before an work could be initiated.
  • PBR Terrain:
    • At its basic, this is PBR layers, but for high-end computers, it can leverage triplanar mapping for improved repeats / quality.
    • There is also a change to how texture repeats are handled, in order to avoid issues at region boundaries.
    • A reminder that it is a viewer-side feature at presents (with a server-side control flag for enabling), piggybacking off the existing terrain tools. As such, there is no fallback from PBR terrain to texture terrain, its on or the other.
    • The PBR terrain support will initially be limited to Private regions and estates; it will not be available to Mainland.
  • A discussion on reflection probes (such as having a probe within a probe – don’t do this) and observed problems, e.g. BUG-234815 (via Github archive)
  • A – slight – issue of losing your head when using the upcoming Mirrors capability from Mouselook (see: BUG-234342 via Github archive).
Don’t do this at home, kids! Viewing oneself using the upcoming Mirrors feature when in Mouselook…
  • A discussion on emojis / unicode / Display Names.
  • A discussion on avatar complexity, policing, limitations, impact of allowing avatars to effectively be given a “free pass” in terms of proper optimisation  / LI accountability, and developing a terminology to help users (and creators?) properly understand the impact their avatars can have on general viewer performance.

Next Meeting

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2024 SL SUG meetings week #11 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Soulstone, February 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 12th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from a chat log (thank you, Yuzuru!) and the video embedded below, recorded by Pantera – my thanks as always for her work.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

Upcoming Simulator Release

  • The next RC update (scheduled for week #12) is Hearts & Flowers, which will go to the BlueSteel RC channel. This mostly comprises internal (non-user visible) updates, together with these user-visible additions:
    • llSetLinkSitFlags/llGetLinkSitFlags – allow you to adjust the sit flags for a prim. It supports the existing two SIT_FLAG_ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPT_ONLY.
      • At some future point, SIT_FLAG_HIDE_AVATAR should also be added, so you don’t need to play an animation that squishes the avatar so they aren’t visible in something like a very small vehicle.
    • A feature for estate managers that will allow them to schedule automatic region restarts (see below).
    • A new constant in llSPP PRIM_SIT_FLAGS it will contain all the sit flag information, (including ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPTED_ONLY (the two older constants will still be available).
    • A new capability to load item inventory lists via HTTP (so items with large contents will load faster when accessed, although this will require a viewer update as well).
    • A fix for avatars going into an animation thrash between falling and flying when using llSetHoverHeight() from an attachment.
  • The next update after that will likely be called Spring Break. This might include notecard searches.

Schedule Region Restarts

Once fully deployed as a part of the Heart & Flowers simulator update (see above) this:

  • Will allow region and estate owners / managers schedule region restarts via the region console in the viewer (when updated).
  • Allows schedules to be set on a Daily or Weekly basis (e.g. every day at 06:00 SLT; Monday & Thursday at 17:00, etc.)
  • Has “vaccination” period of +/- 5 minutes of the selected restart time, so that all regions in an estate don’t suddenly restart at exactly the same time.
  • Allows any scheduled restart to be cancelled in the same manner as existing manual restarts.

Viewer Updates

On Monday March 11th:

  • The glTF PBR Materials Maintenance-2 RC viewer updated to version 7.1.4.8149792635.
  • The Maintenance X RC (usability improvements) updated to version 7.1.4.8148263040.

The rest of the current official viewers in the pipe remain as:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.3.7878383867, the Emoji Viewer, issued February 15, promoted March 1st, 2024 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance-W RC (bug and crash fixes) updated to version 7.1.4.8113624779, on March 6th, 2024.
    • Maintenance Y RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history + Maint Z RC integration) updated to version 7.1.4.8114240508, March 6, 2024.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

Game Controller Update

  • No news from Leviathan Linden – he’s been busy on other tasks.
  • Rider has included the simulator support Leviathan has written into his Combat regions on Aditi (regions Gallipoli and Thermopylae) so those engaged in the Rooty Tooty Shooty Society (RTSS) testing his updates to the SLCS (Second Life Combat System) can try things out.

Simulator Main Loop Breakdown

  • Monty Linden has published details of the simulator main loop (where time deltas occur and state changes and housekeeping tasks are organised), as a high-level breakdown of the loop and a description that relates simulation back to the viewer’s Statistics floater.

In Brief

  • In the previous SUG meeting, there was a request to help solve the problem of cheaters sitting on competition vehicles. Someone sits on the object and uses a HUD with llSetVelocity() or other calls to push the vehicle faster than it would normally go. As there have been wider requests for such a fix for dynamic non-vehicle objects, he sought feedback on other situations wherein objects are messed with by “pusher HUDs”.
  • A discussion on scripting hover height changes which also segued into a discussion on swimming within Linden Water and improving the user experience (particularly for new users, who mix expect to start swimming in water, rather than sinking to the sea floor and walking, before morphing into a discussion on Pathfinding and its limitation. This continued through the meeting from around 12:11 SLT through to about the end of the meeting.
  • As animations were mentioned, Brad Linden noted that there are features in the GLTF spec for rigged meshes and animations that LL wants to support, and will want to provide some “best effort” interoperability of those assets with existing skeletons and animations (e.g. animation retargeting, individual bone scaling). However, all of the details and schedule for this work are currently TBD.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2024 week #10: SL CCUG summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Monkey Island, February 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, March 7th, 2024.

My apologies for the lateness of this report appearing; right now I have a lot going on in the physical world, and the blog and SL are having to take a back seat through until early April, after which things should start to (hopefully) return to normal.

Meeting Purpose

  • The CCUG meeting is for discussion of work related to content creation in Second Life, including current and upcoming LL projects, and encompasses requests or comments from the community, together with related viewer development work. This meeting is held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
  • In regards to meetings:
    • Dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.
    • Commence at 13:00 SLT on their respective dates.
    • Are conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
    • Are open to all with an interest in content creation.
  • The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of the meeting.

Official Viewers Status

  • The Maintenance-W RC (bug and crash fixes) updated to version 7.1.4.8113624779, on March 6th, 2024.
  • The Maintenance Y RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history + Maint Z RC integration) updated to version 7.1.4.8114240508, March 6, 2024.

Both of the above are at parity with the Emoji release viewer. The rest of the current crop of official viewers remains:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.3.7878383867, the Emoji Viewer, issued February 15, promoted March 1st, 2024 – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • glTF PBR Materials Maintenance-2 RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7821226606, February 20, 2024.
    • Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.3.7721015131 , February 14, 2024.
  • Project viewers:

Graphics / glTF

  • Work continues on the GLTF Featurettes viewer, and it is hoped the release on an official project viewer is now not far off. This viewer includes:
    • Geenz Linden’s work on Mirrors, including his latest updates to the capability.
    • Cosmic Linden’s work on applying glTF materials to terrain (currently going through UI bug fixing + this is going to possibly reduce the number of texture repeats in light of 2K textures).
    • Updates which will allow the glTF / PBR swatch boxes in the Build / Edit floater display previews of the materials being selected, rather than grey boxes.
    • The first series of additional glTF extensions – Index of Refraction.
    • Initial work on 2K textures support.
    • Local high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) preview. This will allow content creators to view content in-world under the same HRDI settings as they are using in their tool of choice as a sanity check as SL environments / EEP will render them differently, leading to potential confusion and a belief that the HDRI settings are “wrong”.
    • The nightly builds version of the Featurette viewer is available on Github, but is not suitable for use as a primary viewer, and the capabilities are not supported on the Main grid. As such, this viewer should only be used by those wishing to test the capabilities.
    • The Rumpus Room 2048 region (and neighbours) on Aditi provides back-end support for the Featurettes viewer.
  • With reference to 2K textures, it was noted that while the viewer will have the ability to upload them, the actual ability to do so will be under the control of the simulator code; so just having the viewer-side update does not necessarily mean 2K textures can be uploaded grid-wide.
  • glTF terrain texturing: the focus has been on bug fixing and improving usability.

In Brief

  • Materials support for Bakes on Mesh: this has frequently been requested, and while it has a placeholder in the the Lab’s plans for possible implementation, it is is not currently scheduled to be worked on.
  • It was reiterated that blend shapes will be part of the work to support glTF scene import.
    • glTF scene import will allow and entire glTF scene file (scripts, node hierarchy, etc.) to be imported to SL and essentially “hung off” of a single object in-world.
    • Exactly how this will work, what limitations it will have, etc., in order to avoid “breaking” SL or opening griefing vectors, etc., has yet to be decided.
    • Similarly, glTF scene support will have its own Land Impact calculations, which are currently still TBD within the Lab.
    • Currently, glTF is due to start-up as a major project after the glTF featurette viewer has reached release status.
  • Splat Maps have been requested in the past with terrain painting. These are described as “in the early phase of consideration”, and if taken on, might be a “PBR Terrain Phase II” feature.
  • The subject of separating head and body shapes was raised – this has been the subject of a feature request, which has been accepted (Tracked). As always, “accepted” does not necessarily equate to it being quickly implemented.
  • Land Impact:
    • An update to the Land Impact is due to be deployed on the simulator side, in the Hearts and Flowers release (due to start deployment on March 13th, 2024).
    • This does not change the total Land Capacity (“prims”) for a region; but it does reduce the download weight calculated for meshes
    • This equates to a “15% discount” on mesh object Land Impact (all mesh with the exception of Animesh, not just mesh items downloaded after the update is deployed).
  • Reference was made to the upcoming shift of object inventory messaging moving to HTTP.
    • This should result in the contents of objects rezzed in-world loading “many time faster” than is currently the case.
    • The update will be deployed to the simulator code first, and then be subject to a viewer-side update.
  • With the switch to Github / Canny, LL is trying to be more transparent in terms of planning, projects, issues, etc., looking to have as much public as possible (except things like security issues, which need to be limited in who can view them for obvious reasons). However, while this will allow users to see more of what is in the works / being considered, it also means that projects and work can appear to sit apparently dormant for periods even longer than on Jira
  • How (viewer) feature requests are prioritised (in short):
    • Those which are accepted and form small, relatively stand-alone requests will be directed towards “featurette viewers” of the kind like the glTF featurette viewer mentioned above. The hope is that this will allow devs to pick them up and work on theme in between larger projects or when larger projects are stalled for whatever reason, allowing more of this type of request to filter through the the viewer more readily.
      • In addition, if this works and a Canny Board of such requests can be built-up, it might allow LL to open it to open-source developers to pick items they’d like to work on and then contribute the code to LL.
    • Larger-scale feature requests (such as adding materials support to BOM) will be subject to more extensive investigation / evaluation and internal prioritisation against other large-scale / high-value work, by LL.

Next Meeting

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

March 2024 SL Web User Group summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday March 6th, 2024. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting, recorded by Pantera Północy, is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks as always to Pantera for recording it and making it available.

Meeting Overview

  • The Web User Group exists to provide an opportunity for discussion on Second Life web properties and their related functionalities / features. This includes, but is not limited to: the Marketplace, pages surfaced through the secondlife.com dashboard; the available portals (land, support, etc), the forums.
  • As a rule, these meetings are conducted:
    • On the first Wednesday of the month and 14:00 SLT.
    • In both Voice and / or text.
    • At this location.
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Marketplace

  • The Marketing Team has been working on back end and infrastructure work to upgrade the Marketplace. The updates should be released in the coming days.
  • There were some outages when deploying some updates in the past week, which resulted in issues such as ANS not appearing in Marketplace. This has been corrected, and ANS should be back and working as normal.
  • Once these infrastructure updates are deployed, it clears the way for some new features and UI updates LL has been planning.
    • In terms of UI updates, LL is planning improvements to the viewing products and checking out the Marketplace via the viewer, improving the display size when the floater is changed, and moving the MP so it will display decently on mobile or tablet devices.
    • The feature updates once again have a focus on search. These will include updates based on user feedback / requests, but details of what these will be and the likely time frame for deployment is still being finalised, so details to come. However, “some updates will come faster than others” in terms of information relating to them.

General Discussion / Requests for Marketplace

  • A discussion on making the shopping cart / wish list more flexible.
    • This included requests for more carts for different functions (e.g. a shopping cart specifically for holding items to be purchased as such; carts which could be used to save items for later purchase, separate to the one used for check out, etc.).
    • The latter was particularly popular, either as a cart or a “Save for Later” list (a-la Amazon).
    • Making the wish list function more robust / flexible  / visible (e.g. being able to have more than one wish list).
  • The above spilled into a discussion with the Buy Now button, with some wanting it to include the ability to buy and send gifts directly, rather than having to go through the shopping cart / checkout; some wanting a better distinction between Buy Now and Buy as Gift, as they believe people hit Buy Now mistaking it for Buy as Gift.
  • Both of the above will be looked into.
  • Coupons and vouchers: the ability for merchants to offer coupons and voucher for use on the MP is on the roadmap, but not currently being worked on.
    •  This spilled into the idea of “affiliate” linking – e.g. a person puts together an Flickr image of a look they have created and includes links to the items on the MP – when someone clicks on any of the links and makes a purchase, the originator of the photo gets a referral fee paid to them.
  • There is interest at LL in developing a “You Might Also Like” function / “Also Bought” (again a-la Amazon), wherein items similar to the one being looked at are listed or items other have frequent bought together with the item being looked at are listed (rather than the current merchant-generated “related products” list). But again, not on the current roadmap.

Marketplace Styles

  • Marketplace Styles (allowing things like different colour variants for a product in a single listing) had been given as a capability LL were hoping to deploy before the end of 2022 or early 2023 (see November 2022 Web User Group: new “Plus” subscription level).
  • It is has now been confirmed as something LL has “got designs for” and “would like to get to”. So, as per my January summary comment, if you are a Merchant who has been looking forward to this capability, it is probably best not to hold your breath for its arrival unless you’re especially fond of blue as a facial colour.

In Brief

  • Web Search (viewer):
    • LL are considering a re-working of the current web search page presented in the viewer.
    • The current layout might become “relegated” to being an “advanced search” capability, with tabs being added to the top of the page to make searching easier (e.g. by category – People, Places, Events – rather than having to specifically uncheck or check these on a per search basis.
  • It’s been noted that the use of the word “Resident” when used as part of an account name is inconsistent (e.g. in some searches / actions, only the user’s first name needed to be entered, the “resident” is automatically appended; in others “resident” must be explicitly typed in as a part of the name. LL would like to address this, but no work going forward at present.
  • A discussion on L$1 items, gifting and a “biasing” of top selling item lists., and the idea of limited L$0 items being gifted only to friends of the person using the item as a gift.
  • Further requests to make demo(s) a dedicated category on the MP, or to make a Demo checkbox within listing creation to ensure the metadata indicates an item is a demo, this improving searches wishing to include / exclude demo items without having to rely on keywords.
  • A general conversation on the MP and merchant’s perceptions on how people use the Marketplace.
  • A suggestion to have a Marketplace button in the Profile floater for merchants who have a Marketplace presence – or configurable buttons that people can use to point to their MP store, their Flickr presence, etc. This led to a discussion on Profiles.
  • The WUG meetings are “very close” to becoming biweekly.
  • Note: the video extends beyond the end of the meeting. As this is use chat, rather than specific put to LL, it is not summarised here – please refer to the video.

Next Meeting

  • Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024.

2024 SL SUG meetings week #10 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Woodland Café and Library, February 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 5th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from my chat log and the video embedded below, recorded by Pantera – my thanks as always for her work.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

Upcoming Simulator Release

  • The simulator update to follow Gingerbread remains  Hearts & Flowers, which will likely be deployed in the next couple of weeks. This mostly comprises internal (non-user visible) updates, together with these user-visible additions:
    • llSetLinkSitFlags/llGetLinkSitFlags – allow you to adjust the sit flags for a prim. It supports the existing two SIT_FLAG_ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPT_ONLY.
      • At some future point, SIT_FLAG_HIDE_AVATAR should also be added, so you don’t need to play an animation that squishes the avatar so they aren’t visible in something like a very small vehicle.
    • A feature for estate managers that will allow them to schedule automatic region restarts (see below).
    • A new constant in llSPP PRIM_SIT_FLAGS it will contain all the sit flag information, (including ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPTED_ONLY (the two older constants will still be available).
    • A new capability to load item inventory lists via HTTP (so items with large contents will load faster when accessed, although this will require a viewer update as well).
  • The next update after that will likely be called Spring Break. This might include notecard searches.

Schedule Region Restarts

Once fully deployed as a part of the Heart & Flowers simulator update (see above) this:

  • Will allow region and estate owners / managers schedule region restarts via the region console in the viewer (when updated).
  • Allows schedules to be set on a Daily or Weekly basis (e.g. every day at 06:00 SLT; Monday & Thursday at 17:00, etc.)
  • Has “vaccination” period of +/- 5 minutes of the selected restart time, so that all regions in an estate don’t suddenly restart at exactly the same time.
  • Allows any scheduled restart to be cancelled in the same manner as existing manual restarts.

Viewer Updates

No changes at the start of the week:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.3.7878383867, the Emoji Viewer, issued February 15, promoted March 1st, 2024.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance-W RC (bug and crash fixes), version 7.1.3.7983616888, February 22, 2024.
    • glTF PBR Materials Maintenance-2 RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7821226606, February 20, 2024.
    • Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.3.7721015131 , February 14, 2024.
    • Maintenance Y RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history), version 7.1.3.7790341084, February 9, 2024.
  • Project viewers:

Game Controller Update

  • Leviathan Linden has produced a new GameControl viewer.
  • This has new logic that detects the game controller device and produces the GameControl data, and can be used to drive a Flycam around.
  • The viewer leaves SpaceMouse and other 3Dconnexion devices unchanged, but disables the old game controller logic to drive X-Box style game controllers.

Combat User Group Update

  • It appears that after yours truly wibbled about the Combat committee User Group sharing the same acronym as the Content Creation User Group (CCUG), which could cause confusion, it has apparently been agreed the combat User Group will henceforth be know as the RTSS – the Rooty Tooty Shooty Society – which gets a two thumbs-up from me 😀 .
  • Rider has established two regions on Aditi (the Beta grid) – Gallipoli and Thermopylae (both being appropriate names) – with combat support so people can start getting a feel for the new features as he gets them written, and provide feedback at the meetings (the next being on Thursday, March 14th, 2024).

Region Crossings

  • Monty Linden’s update comprises: “We can now throw avatars into the sea twice as fast as before [so] Developer testing continues 😦 “.

In Brief

  • A request was made for functions that could be used to actively detect forces being applied (e.g. in vehicle racing communities its hard to police cheaters using the push or force functions they have in attachments/HUDs). The request was not to change the force/push functions, but detect their usage by another script.
    • This led to an extended discussion on how best to approach this, options, limitations, etc., running through the meeting for around 20 minutes, from the 20:19 SLT time point to the 20:41 SLT time point.
  • A further discussion of llHealth and Damage from around the 20:41 SLT point through to close to the end of the meeting.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.